The American News Media: How It Got This Way

Everyone seems to have an opinion about what the U.S. news media does wrong or (occasionally) right.

But few understand how journalists adopted the values that have guided their coverage for decades. Journalism professor and historian Matthew Pressman shows how the upheaval of the 1960s and 70s gave birth to the kind of press we take for granted today: a press that interprets the news, challenges the powerful, caters to its audience, and adheres to a set of liberal values.

Everyone seems to have an opinion about what the U.S. news media does wrong or (occasionally) right.

But few understand how journalists adopted the values that have guided their coverage for decades. Journalism professor and historian Matthew Pressman shows how the upheaval of the 1960s and 70s gave birth to the kind of press we take for granted today: a press that interprets the news, challenges the powerful, caters to its audience, and adheres to a set of liberal values.